Ireland 1798-1998

The new edition of Alvin Jackson’s highly influential survey of 200 years of Irish history

In Ireland, 1798-1998: War, Peace, and Beyond, award-winning historian Alvin Jackson provides a well-balanced and authoritative account of modern Irish political history. Drawing on original research and extensive readings in current scholarship, the author surveys Irish political parties, leaders, and movements with a special emphasis on the tension between Irish nationalism and unionism.

Opening with a wide-ranging introduction to Irish history, the text describes the varieties and interconnections of the Irish political experience through a sustained and coherent historical narrative, beginning with the creation of militant republicanism and militant loyalism in the 1790s. Reader-friendly chapters interweave social, economic, and cultural material while offering fresh analyses of familiar historical issues and personalities.

This third edition contains expanded coverage of the most recent political developments in Ireland, both North and South. A new epilogue examines the impacts of the Good Friday Agreement, the global banking crisis, Brexit, and COVID-19 on Irish politics and institutions.

The most up-to-date interpretation of modern Irish political history available in a single volume, Ireland, 1798-1998: War, Peace, and Beyond, Third Edition, is a must-read for undergraduate and graduate students working on Irish and British political history, as well as general readers with an interest in the subject.

ALVIN JACKSON is Sir Richard Lodge Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. He has taught at University College Dublin, Boston College, and Queen’s University Belfast. He is the author of eight books, including United Kingdoms: Multinational Union States in Europe and Beyond, 1800-1925, and is the general editor of The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History. Jackson is an honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Member of the Academia Europaea, and a Fellow of the British Academy.